Danish police free terror plot suspect

Thursday

Dec 30, 2010 at 12:01 AMDec 30, 2010 at 11:32 AM

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — An Iraqi asylum seeker accused of plotting a shooting attack on the Copenhagen office of a newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad was freed today because of an apparent lack of evidence.

Three other suspects, residents in Sweden, were ordered to remain in custody for four weeks by a Danish court.

The four men were arrested yesterday in the Danish capital, while police in Stockholm arrested a Swedish citizen of Tunisian origin, suspected of being linked to the plot. Danish and Swedish police said the group, which they had been observing for months, planned a shooting spree in the building where the Jyllands-Posten newspaper has its Copenhagen newsdesk.

Jakob Scharf, head of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service Scharf, described some of the suspects as “militant Islamists with relations to international terror networks.” He said more arrests were possible.

Scharf said the assault was to have been carried out before this weekend and could have been similar in strategy to the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai, India, that left 166 people dead

The latest arrests brought renewed attention to simmering anger at the newspaper, which has been the target of several attacks and threats since publishing 12 cartoons of Muhammad in 2005.

The right-leaning daily, one of Denmark’s largest, had asked Danish cartoonists to draw the prophet as a challenge to self-censorship after the author of a children’s book on religion said its illustrator demanded anonymity because he feared retaliation for a picture of the prophet. Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable ones, for fear it could lead to idolatry.

Kurt Westergaard, the artist who drew the most controversial of the cartoons — the prophet wearing a bomb-shaped turban — also has been attacked and threatened.

The cartoons turned this small Scandinavian nation into a target of Islamist groups seeking to carry out terror attacks and prompted violent anti-Danish protests in Muslim countries in 2006.

Under a court order, none of the suspects held in Denmark can be named. Police said they were Swedish residents — a 44-year-old Tunisian, a 29-year-old Lebanese-born man and a 30-year-old whose national origin was not released.

The men face preliminary charges of attempting to carry out an act of terrorism and possession of illegal weapons. The men pleaded not guilty and refused to speak in the closed-door hearing at the Glostrup City Court in the Danish capital.

Preliminary charges are a step short of formal charges, but if they are formally filed and they are convicted, they could face life sentences.

A Danish intelligence official said the released Iraqi man remains a suspect but gave no other details and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Iraqi suspect’s younger brother said he had been released and was at home with his parents.

“My brother is innocent. He is being called a terrorist because he is a devout Muslim,” Farooq Muhammed Salman told The Associated Press.